Coolpad's Quattro 4G can't quite compete in the budget realm

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Apps

For better or worse, the Quattro comes with a ton of preloaded MetroPCS apps. However, to get access to Metro's services such as Metro411 or the Metro Total Protection App, you'll have to pony up a few extra bucks a month.

It also comes with your basic allotment of standard apps and utilities. There's a voice recorder, Google voice search, a music app, navigation, plus a news and weather app, and good old YouTube. This mix of generic and MetroPCS applications strike a balance between useful software and white noise that clutters up the phone.

Since the phone doesn't come with a lot of memory a new user might want to clean off the unwanted apps. Most phones won't let you scrub away carrier bloatware, but the Quattro does. The Quattro only comes with 133 MB of internal memory and a 2GB micro SD card. Users can upgrade the memory and stick a 32GB card in the phone, but out of the box things it will a tight squeeze.

Though the phone has a 4G connection, the phone itself was a bit sluggish with a 1GHz processor. Performance was acceptable, if you don't mind waiting a few extra seconds for apps and games to load.

Maps

Like any good Android phone worth its salt, the Coolpad Quattro 4G has Google's navigation and map apps. As always, Maps is more for searching, and Navigation will give you turn-by turn-directions.

Don't rely on the Quattro to pinpoint where you are, though. When walking around downtown San Francisco, Google Maps was always about a block or two behind out actual location. Whether the fault lies with the phone itself or MetroPCS is unclear. We're confident it wasn't on Google's end, though, since Maps is so reliable on many other smartphones. It's not pinpoint accurate, but the Quattro will get you where you need to go.

MetroPCS's pwn GPS service costs $5 a month, making it DOA compared to the free and effective Google service to turn on the phone's GPS. That was a bit of a deal breaker for us, and likely for customers looking to save on monthly bills as well.